Review from JG at Tasty Fanzine

Below is a review of 'Heathcliffian Surly' by JG at Tasty Fanzine:

I'd just finished reading a newspaper article celebrating the 50th anniversary of the legalisation of DH Lawrence's 'Lady Chatterly's Lover' when along comes Marmaduke Dando, acerbically witty singer songwriter in the manner of Neil Hannon, Momus and occasionally Morrissey - and he's a fully paid up Lawrentian to boot : the CDs inner sleeve contains a colourful 100 or so word quote from Lawrence, one which is very unlikely to have seen publication in his lifetime.

Never really struck me as much of a loungebar sophisticate, old DH. Only too easy to imagine him spluttering through his moustache while attempting to put a banjo tune together for that 'Lizard' poem we got at school, in between throwing pieces of coal at nuns and admiring those newfangled 'futurist' ideas from Milan. Unlike Marmaduke Dando, whose musicianship is melodic and restrained, a lot like a sort of edgier Divine Comedy, employing actual pathos as opposed to Hannon's seaside japery.

Gets a bit samey over 10 tracks though, I really was listening out for a musical flourish, for a break from the repetitive keyboard-led strictures and structures, away from the unvarying tone of mildly shocked cynicism, awaiting the arrival of a trumpet or slide guitar or even a female voice to shatter the ever thickening fug of ever decreasing options, the sound of blinkers going on, the entire desperate spiralling that arrives with crushing finality at the park bench and sherry denoument of 'The Last Embrace' ....

Pulp fans, this one's for you!

http://www.tastyfanzine.org.uk/albums103oct10.htm#MarmadukeDando